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Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 13 Feb 2016, 20:20

by MIH-XTC

LAST EDITED MARCH 3rd 2016

Hey guys, it’s Calculus.

Attached is a modded version of the 3.x balance to fine tune all of the minor details that I think need tweaking in an attempt to make improved game play. The mod is intended to “enhance” the current game play by making all of the weapons, bodies and turrets relevant for their intended purpose and time frame. Players are to continue playing as they normally would and the intended effect is that everything just kind of seems to work a little bit better for some reason.

At the core of this enhanced balance is a new turret/body weight system and a functional engine/terrain modifier system. As it currently stands right now, 90% of the weapon/body/propulsion combinations achieve the maximum speed allowed by default and therefore engine upgrades and terrain types have no effect on them. This is not how the game was intended to be. Under the enhanced balance mod, every weapon, body and propulsion type has a unique speed signature with each engine upgrade progressively giving more speed.
The mod also comes with an excel spreadsheet used to track and communicate the changes from the current balance. Screenshots of the spreadsheet are below

To use this mod:
Simply put the stats folder (see attachment) inside any map and that’s it. Warzone maps have a .wz file extension and they can be opened just like a folder (WZ maps behave just like .zip archives).

To test and observe the changes in this mod:
Play a game with the EB-Sample map (see attachment). This map is essentially 10 player Classic NTW with each player having 10 research modules. The reason for choosing this map as a sample map to demonstrate the changes is because with 10 research modules, all research items will be seamlessly researched non-stop from start to finish and this allows you to compare all of the new research arrival times assuming that a player were to flawlessly research any particular research path in a real game. This map is also ideal for testing/racing unit speeds. The map is intended to be played on T1/Half bases using a combination of Hover and Nullbot AI’s.

More specifically, to test these changes in the EB-Sample map, do the following:

Type “cheat on” as soon as the game starts to enable debug mode.
Then type “autogame on” to make the AI take control of your player
Then use Ctrl +/- to increase the game speed to 100 and fast forward as much as you like. Sit back and watch the AI play…

To compare the changes to the existing balance, simply play the EB-SampleNoMod map side by side with the modded version in window mode.

While observing the AI gameplay, take note of the tank + cyborg speeds at various points in the game and experiment with testing different tank designs to see the new speed. Check the design again after engine upgrades have finished to see how much faster the unit has become.

Also take note of the new research arrival times. Research is seamless and flawless under this sample map however the AI does temporarily run out of power during some points. Type “whale fin” for infinite power and then you can see the hypothetical perfect research time for all items. However, infinite power doesn’t allow you to test new power production rates.

Use Ctrl + O to place any unit or structure. This is great for instantly testing nearly anything you want in WZ.

Use Alt + A to instantly unlock all research items. Do not use this in games when testing research arrival times because all research items will become available.

Ctrl + X instantly finishes items that are currently being researched.

“biffer baker” gives units infinite HP’s.

OVERVIEW OF THE INTENDED EFFECTS OF THIS MOD:

Research:
The early – mid tech tree time era lasts longer and the later part of the research tech tree now researches faster. Some minor dependencies have been tweaked. Please reference the balance tracker spreadsheet for the full list of research changes.

Power:
Power modules now give 1.25% more power but all power module upgrades are 1.25% less effective. The intention here is to make the power upgrades not as valuable or mandatory to stay competitive without affecting the overall flow of power. The solution of making generators 1.25% more powerful gives the effect of slightly more oil in the first 20 minutes of the game but by mid game (after 3 power upgrades) the power will seem the same. I did race mod vs no mod with constant research and mod had 6,000 more power at 91,000 vs 85,000 but they were tied at 130,000 in mid game, no mod took lead at 150,000 vs 146,000 but then in late game mod starts making more power again. I think this should benefit both high and low oil games. However, the last power upgrades are slightly more effective so it’s a gamble to skip early power upgrades if the game lasts long. Also, all power upgrades take slightly longer to research with the last one arriving near the very end of the tech tree.

Artillery:
All mortar upgrades after Bombard now take slightly less time to research making the later mortar upgrades more effective during the mid-game battles.

All howitzer upgrades take slightly longer to research moving artillery from mid-late game time to late game. This also inherently makes mortar more effective. Incendiary howitzer has improved range and arrives before groundshaker now instead of after. It should have a small window of effectiveness similar to incendiary mortar. Groundshaker has also been slightly nerfed. Also, now that units move faster due to engine upgrades, artillery is inherently less effective. The biggest reason current games go to mobile groundshaker/arch angel stalemates is because units move too slow to get within range. Games should now definitely end in dragon/wyvern + rail/scourge/laser tank wars instead of mobile artillery. Artillery is now effective as defensive emplacements but not so much for offensive mobile artillery. Artillery structure build times have been improved in parallel with all other defensive structures.

Propulsions:
Hovers now receive 25% more HP’s and have slightly increased max speed. Hovers are currently a little bit too weak. Hover flamers are now viable alternatives to cannons and rockets but scorpion and mantis are needed to utilize extra hover speeds.

Tracks move slightly faster and also receive 25% extra HP’s.

Wheels receive 25% extra HP’s making them not so inferior to early half tracks.

VTOL max speed has also been raised but VTOL bombs need good engine upgrades to achieve normal or faster than normal speeds.

Rockets now do slightly 10% more damage to cyborg, before it was too little but cannons also have received some favors too (too many tradeoffs to list in cannons vs rockets). I think all propulsions should now be balanced now and each has practical application in certain scenario’s.

Red + Black body tanks:
All red and black bodies (late game bodies) have improved arrival times and production times. Wyvern and dragon tanks have improved speed and now take ~40 – 50 seconds to produce depending on turret/propulsion type compared to 60 – 70 seconds before. Dragon + Wyvern also arrive much earlier now. Wyvern is now fastest body in the game and dragon has most HP’s. This is a speed vs HP tradeoff in the final stages of the game. I’m looking forward to some red body tank wars instead of tiger track mobile artillery.

Defenses: have been slightly improved in the following ways:
All bunkers and fortresses receive +2 armor, all hard points receive +100 HP, most towers receive +100 HP and improved armor and all defensive turrets have slightly improved build times. Also, truck construction upgrades are slightly improved making defense structures faster to build and slightly harder to kill. Cyborg construction engineer now builds faster as well but still slightly less than truck. Defenses in general should now be slightly stronger and take slightly less time to build. Build times for Mortars and Howitzers have also been improved.

Repairing:
Cyborg mechanic, light repair turret and heavy repair turret all repair 2x the amount of HP’s now. This isn’t too overpowering but makes these units effective in certain situations. Cyborg mechanic has improved speed and is useful for scouting but has 25% less HP’s. Cyborg mechanic should also be useful for repairing units in low oil games.

VTOL’s:
All VTOL bombs now take slightly longer to research but the AA upgrades have also been moved back in parallel. All VTOL bombs except for HEAP have been slightly improved to allow for each bomb to be useful in a certain time window. Plasmite bombs now fly faster with retribution and are slightly more powerful. Hurricane and whirlwind cost slightly more and take slightly longer to build. Sunburst and AA flak cannon are slightly improved. AA Flak cannon hardpoint now arrives earlier making it a viable alternative to whirlwind. Rocket line has Avenger AA as alternative to whirlwind. Stormbringer laser AA now arrives slightly earlier. All AA choices should be balanced now and each VTOL bomb should have a window of relevancy.

Cyborgs:
All cyborgs have been slightly improved in one way or another except for the basic mg cyborg. Please reference the guide to see the extra performance increase each cyborg gets.

Please consider adding feedback on anything you think can be improved.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 13:24

by crab_

Hello.
I will try to say first thoughts about your list of changes.
Sorry for bad english.

First.
For what kind of games this balance mod was created?
(classic low-oil, med-oil, high-oil?)

Why artillery improved? Artillery too strong in 4x4 and 5x5 games.
You improved hellstorm and inc.howitzer. I think it is not right way.
There is just 1 reason why this weapons is used too rare - it is gound shaker. I'm trying to say - Groundshaker (GS) better in all cases than any other howitzers.
Well, you slightly nerfed GS.

Why thermite bombs were improved? Thermite bombs were overpowered long time and later Thermite bombs were nerfed to reasonalbe values. Thermite bombs are usable still, but this kind of bombs requires more micromanagement, because in auto-patrol mode they spent damage in wrong way (incendiary damage/sec not taken into account).

You improved Medium cannon (MC). Cannons and rocket balance is too fragile. I mean - any change to cann or rock can break balance and make people play only cannnons or only rockets. In this case psyhology of players affects gameplay. if people think that rockets is stronger - they play only rockets.
Ok 30 sec earlier is good.

What I do not like - improving rockets stuff.
Rockets line allows player to play "only rockets". No any other weapon line allows to play that way. You can't play "only cannons" because cyborgs will beat you in first 10-15 minutes of game. "pure MG" ia also impossible...
But "pure rockets" is possible it played too often.
See. "pure rockets" provides you with weapons for all cases:
1. Powerful anti-tank (mini-pod, lancer)
2. Anti-cyborg (MRA, Seraph)
3. Anti-defense (Bunker buster)
4. Artillery (ripples, archangel)
5. Good AA (sunburst)
6. Good vtol-interceptors (sunburst)

So. All that stuff are accesible from single weapon line and uses same upgrades.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 13:33

by crab_

MIH-XTC wrote:
Documenting the changes in this mod consumes about 75% of the work involved.

I think yu should document each single change before you actually change it in .txt
So documentation should be ready at the same time when mod ready.

I have my old program, which can compare two .wz files and list changed stats.
Results are below:

This means Twin assault gun will appear much earlier. May be this change correspond to something other? Cyborgs were made stronger twice??

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 18:28

by MIH-XTC

Your English is fine lol.

Wow that's awesome you can compare two files like that. I know UNIX has "diff" to compare two files but I figured the output would be too messy. Instead I was checking line by line new file vs old file when I wasn't sure of the original value and it's really time consuming lol. Being able to quickly identify all the changes by comparing two files will save a lot of time! I was really curious about the number of changes myself and I guessed about 500 changes and it seems about right based on the file comparisons.

Admittedly, I did get sloppy at the end in documenting some of the changes because I started to feel that I'm wasting time documenting every single minor change when most people don't care to know or don't understand the implications but if you are able to quickly identify all of the changes by each line and then have an intellectual discussion on the change then I don't think I'm wasting my time . It's really good that you can do this because like I said, documenting and communicating the changes in a format that can be quickly digested has proved more time consuming then actually making the changes! I'm also in a huge hurry to post/finish what I have because once I figured out how to mod almost any aspect of the game play (2 weeks ago), I haven't been able to focus on anything in real life until this project is done!

I think the only change in this mod that the community as a whole might be interested in reusing is the body/turret weight system so I decided to post what I have thus far and get feedback to see if modding minor details of the stats is worthwhile.

crab_ wrote:
First.
For what kind of games this balance mod was created?
(classic low-oil, med-oil, high-oil?)

These changes should improve balance in all games. NTW strategy vs low oil strategy is generally the same with only minor deviations. The only difference between the strategies is the speed of the research flow which affects the timing of the strategies.

In regards to assault gun range going from 9 to 12, that is a legitimate mistake. I meant to change the VTOL version of the weapon from 9 to 12 which is the line right below it. I did change the VTOL version but somehow I must have accidentally edited the line above it as well. Thanks for catching.

I tried to make the non-bomb VTOL weapons (minipod + heavy MG + light cannon etc....) more effective by increasing the range from 9 - 12, decreasing the minimum distance they can shoot from, increasing their ammo load and delaying the bombs. This is one area where I did get sloppy because I feel as if I can spend a lot of time making sure light cannon VTOL is good and balanced but nobody will still use it so I didn't want to spend any additional time on the non-bomb VTOL weapons. Instead I think I just changed all non-bomb VTOL weapons range from 9 to 12 and decreased the minimum firing distance. I used the minipod VTOL as a test case when playing around with the parameters.

This means Twin assault gun will appear much earlier. May be this change correspond to something other? Cyborgs were made stronger twice??

This is correct. Right now twin assault gun arrives at same time as scourge and flashlight because both depend on neural research MK1 and scourge/flashlight are much better due to range. I have never found any use for twin assault gun in any circumstances so I tried to make it arrive earlier. I removed neural dependency for twin assault so that it comes directly after single assault gun and decreased res time for the weapon itself. I felt that original res time for the weapon itself is too long. Also, heavy cyborgs move ~15% faster and I slightly decreased Tank Killer cyborg production time from 1000 to 950.

Haha, thermite + plasmite bomb are the only changes I made that I wasn’t sure if it’s too overpowered or not. I did not play in 2.x but I read that thermite was too powerful at that time. Right now, the only reason why thermite is no good because it takes too long to produce compared to HEAP so HEAP has better overall ratios.

I think you have misinterpreted the changes to thermite. I decreased the direct hit damage of thermite bomb from 370 to 300 but I gave it 1.5 tile splash damage of 150 (HEAP has 2 tile@ 300). Since it is a “bomb” I think it should have some splash damage in addition to incendiary splash. The incendiary time has also been reduced from 200 to 155 (15 = 1 second?) but yes incendiary damage was increased from 95 to 192. The intention was to decrease the incendiary time (causes lag anyways I think) and concentrate the incendiary damage in a smaller amount of time which is slightly less than normal now. Thermite also flies kind of slow until turbo charged engine MK3 and I also made thermite require HEAP. The overall intention of these changes is to make the bombs progressively better but give time windows of relevancy of each. It’s supposed to go cluster --> phosphor --> HEAP --> Thermite --> Plasmite. Bomb research times have also been slightly increased to elongate the VTOL research path. I don’t think plasmite + thermite will be effective vs base materials but maybe against armies. I also reduced research time for whirlwind hardpoint. It’s difficult to say how VTOL will balance without actually playing a pro game.

crab_ wrote:
Why artillery improved? Artillery too strong in 4x4 and 5x5 games.
You improved hellstorm and inc.howitzer. I think it is not right way.
There is just 1 reason why this weapons is used too rare - it is gound shaker. I'm trying to say - Groundshaker (GS) better in all cases than any other howitzers.
Well, you slightly nerfed GS.

Similar to VTOL, I want to make artillery progressively better and give time window of relevancy for each but currently only groundshaker is useful. Just like VTOL bomb upgrade, I did the same thing with artillery shell making each upgrade slightly longer to elongate the howitzer research path. Right now artillery weapon strength goes howitzer --> groundshaker --> incendiary howitzer --> hellstorm but incendiary howitzer is no good at range 39 and also because it comes after groundshaker. I increased incendiary howitzer range from 39 to 50 (GS = 64, hellstorm = 55) and made it come after howitzer instead of GS. Right now I think artillery is too strong in late game only because units move too slow to get close enough but with the speed changes I’m not sure artillery will be as strong. I did reduced GS splash damage from 350 to 300 but increased hellstorm direct hit and splash damage from 120 to 150. This is to make hellstorm better than GS. I also did decrease artillery round effectiveness vs cyborg from 130 to 125. Also, wyvern and dragon now move faster with more HP so I think wyvern + dragon tanks beat artillery in late game. Again, this can only be tested in pro game, no singleplayer games with bots can simulate research flow + arrival time in real game.

crab_ wrote:
You improved Medium cannon (MC). Cannons and rocket balance is too fragile. I mean - any change to cann or rock can break balance and make people play only cannnons or only rockets. In this case psyhology of players affects gameplay. if people think that rockets is stronger - they play only rockets.
Ok 30 sec earlier is good.

What I do not like - improving rockets stuff.
Rockets line allows player to play "only rockets". No any other weapon line allows to play that way. You can't play "only cannons" because cyborgs will beat you in first 10-15 minutes of game. "pure MG" ia also impossible...
But "pure rockets" is possible it played too often.
See. "pure rockets" provides you with weapons for all cases:
1. Powerful anti-tank (mini-pod, lancer)
2. Anti-cyborg (MRA, Seraph)
3. Anti-defense (Bunker buster)
4. Artillery (ripples, archangel)
5. Good AA (sunburst)
6. Good vtol-interceptors (sunburst)

So. All that stuff are accesible from single weapon line and uses same upgrades.

Agreed, cannon vs rocket is very fragile and also it is the foundation in which the gameplay is based. MG and flamer are supplementary. Changing the unit speeds alone affects rocket vs cannon balance because now medium cannon moves faster on cobra half-track in addition to arriving 20 – 30 seconds earlier. The speed difference alone with MC I think may make cannon too strong now in early game. I tried to make medium cannon weigh more but then scorpion hover doesn’t receive 1.5x speed bonus… I did increase rocket effectiveness vs legged from 35 to 40 because minipod seems too weak vs cyborg. I decreased HPV production time from 700 to 650 but also decreased tank killer cyborg production time from 1000 to 950. Single auto cannon rate of fire increased from 40 to 45 (right now nobody uses it) but twin assault cannon and heavy cannon are inherently less effective because they move slower now relative to lancer. I did increase needle range from 11 to 12 to stay competitive vs scourge.

I would say the following is an approximate timeline of when rocket/cannon is favored on arbitrary map settings using the research tech times. This is obviously a generalization given arbitrary settings. This timeline may seem a little bit NTW biased but for the most part it’s still valid in other games as well

15 – 18 minutes HPV cyborg is available at 12:40 and once 10 of them reach the front line rocket has no counter until flashlight.

18 - 20 minutes Is all cannon and it gets even worse as heavy cannon and twin assault cannon become available at 17:29 and 19:19.

20 – 24 minutes It’s during this point where cannons typically end the game with twin assault cannon and HPV cyborg combination, it’s too much for rockets.

24 - 45 minutes is rockets, if you can survive this long. Tank killer comes at 20:59 but usually takes 10 of them at the front line before they can keep cannons at a distance. Shortly thereafter tank killer cyborg is available and then scourge all of which beat cannon due to their range. Rail gun doesn’t come until 44:06 and obviously beats the rocket path the rest of the game.

crab_ wrote:
I think yu should document each single change before you actually change it in .txt
So documentation should be ready at the same time when mod ready.

Agreed. I stopped documenting some stuff because I don’t anticipate these changes to be adopted and master version is different so I didn’t think it was worth investing the time but I see you can quickly identify what has changed . Right now this mod is just a personal attempt at improving balance but when it comes time for the next master release or 4.x I definitely want to give much more consideration/care when making changes and together we can make perfect balance. I was under the impression up until 2 weeks ago that balance changes were difficult to implement. I wanted to make this post to demonstrate that as a community we can make changes easily, it’s just a matter of collecting feedback on what to change. It’s nice to have these types of discussions on advanced technical details of balance because that’s one area of improvement that we can make progress on in next release and the amount of work is miniscule compared to how much it can improve the game.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 20:23

by MIH-XTC

Also,

Some other things that I'd like to change is increasing the research price for some items but I can't figure out how research cost is calculated. I think you originally mentioned this idea in another thread. The values in research.txt seem to only affect research time (not cost) and I can't find where the cost values are stored. I observed from gauss/dragon/wyvern that they have different research times but each cost 450 so I'm not sure how cost is derived from the research time variable in research.txt. It seems cost may be calculated based on ranges of research time e.g. research item with 40,000 - 50,0000 points (dragon/gauss/wyvern) have 450 cost, 30,000 - 40,000 research points = 350 price etc... or something like that.

You also did mention in another thread about reducing effectiveness of power upgrade because any good player knows it's almost mandatory to research power upgrade because it's too powerful. I highly agree but did not change it because it will affect the overall power a player has and how they spend power. Right now I think defensive structures are only useful if there is spare power after full tank/cyborg production so if we reduce effectiveness of power upgrade I think it will also make defensive structures less effective because don't have enough power for units. One way around this is to increase the price of power upgrades but as mentioned above I cannot figure out how that's done.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 21:41

by stiv

In order to managing the complexity of this, you need to put it under some sort of version control system. That will give you some hope of being able to tell what has changed from one version to another. Also, there are a number of tools, both graphical and command-line, that will show you the differences between text files. Doing it by hand is... challenging.

It would be interesting to do this for the WZ master branch since that is where future development will take place. I'm guessing there are some scripts to convert the old files to JSON format. If not, we can make them.

For this to be an actual experiment, it would be nice to have some actual data where we can compare the results of changes. Maybe small skirmishes we could re-run.

I do like the little spreadsheets.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 14 Feb 2016, 22:09

by crab_

MIH-XTC wrote:These changes should improve balance in all games. NTW strategy vs low oil strategy is generally the same with only minor deviations. The only difference between the strategies is the speed of the research flow which affects the timing of the strategies.

Strategy is very dependent on following:
1) Oil amout and oil distribution
We have maps with 8 oil per player. At this kind of map you can't play like on NTW. In some cases you simply stop researching and force unit production.
2) Team settings: 1vs1, 1vs1vs1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3 etc
3) Map size and landscape.
Some maps allow players build defense and play in turtle-mode.
Defenses can be overpowered on that kind of maps.
So if you make def. better then it became worse on defensive maps.

I'm simply cant talk about balance on all maps. I think it is nearly impossible to make balance which will work on any map.
So i suggest to bound set of maps, which must be balanced with discussed mod.

MIH-XTC wrote:
This is correct. Right now twin assault gun arrives at same time as scourge and flashlight because both depend on neural research MK1 and scourge/flashlight are much better due to range. I have never found any use for twin assault gun in any circumstances so I tried to make it arrive earlier. I removed neural dependency for twin assault so that it comes directly after single assault gun and decreased res time for the weapon itself. I felt that original res time for the weapon itself is too long. Also, heavy cyborgs move ~15% faster and I slightly decreased Tank Killer cyborg production time from 1000 to 950.

I remember many games when TMG was used.
For example, in low-oil games you can play "pure mg".
In your mod TMG will be best weapon in certain time window.

MIH-XTC wrote:
Some other things that I'd like to change is increasing the research price for some items but I can't figure out how research cost is calculated. I think you originally mentioned this idea in another thread. The values in research.txt seem to only affect research time (not cost) and I can't find where the cost values are stored. I observed from gauss/dragon/wyvern that they have different research times but each cost 450 so I'm not sure how cost is derived from the research time variable in research.txt. It seems cost may be calculated based on ranges of research time e.g. research item with 40,000 - 50,0000 points (dragon/gauss/wyvern) have 450 cost, 30,000 - 40,000 research points = 350 price etc... or something like that.

In 3.1.x we have one number (Research Points) which stores both research time and research cost.
Power needed = Research Points / 32
Need to check it somewhere. i do not rememebr exactly.
Also It is limited to 450 power.
There is workaround - change power of labs and research module. You need to know exactly all formulas.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 04 Mar 2016, 01:19

by MIH-XTC

crab_ wrote:
I think you should document each single change before you actually change it in .txt
So documentation should be ready at the same time when mod ready.

MIH-XTC wrote:
Agreed. I stopped documenting some stuff because I started to feel that I'm wasting time documenting every single minor change when most people don't care to know or don't understand the implications but if you are able to quickly identify all of the changes by each line and then have an intellectual discussion on the change then I don't think I'm wasting my time

Okay, after having an in depth conversation with you on the matters above I decided it is worthwhile to pursue finishing documentation and make more changes. I updated the original post with the newest and final version of this mod. I would say original mod was only 25% complete compared to this latest version. Per our previous conversation, I did abandon the changes to twin assault MG and thermite bomb discussed above but changed many other items. All changes are documented in the spreadsheet. I have put an outline of the intended effects of changes in the original thread post for all readers to read. Can you try this mod when you have a chance and let me know what you think of it now? I put instructions on how to test this mod in the original forum post.

stiv wrote:In order to managing the complexity of this, you need to put it under some sort of version control system.
For this to be an actual experiment, it would be nice to have some actual data where we can compare the results of changes. Maybe small skirmishes we could re-run.
I do like the little spreadsheets.

That is a great idea to have this mod come pre-packed in a map as a demonstration. I chose to use 10 player classic NTW map with each player having 10 research labs as a demonstration map because this will allow for non-stop seamless research of all items in the tech tree from start to finish and this is the best way to compare new arrival times for research items. A big flat map is also ideal for testing/racing unit speeds and unit battles. I added this map to the original post attachment and named it EB-Sample. I also added the same map without the mod so you can compare side by side in window view.

crab_ wrote:
In 3.1.x we have one number (Research Points) which stores both research time and research cost.
Power needed = Research Points / 32
Need to check it somewhere. i do not rememebr exactly.
Also It is limited to 450 power.
There is workaround - change power of labs and research module. You need to know exactly all formulas.

Thanks, I found where 32 and 450 values are declared. Unfortunately they are hardcoded in research.cpp on lines 53 and 54.

I’m in agreeance with one of your previous posts that research costs should be doubled. Ideally I would like to change 32 to 16 to double the cost and raise max cost from 450 to 1000. If 32 affects research time too then we can double research values in /stats/functions.txt to change the cost without affecting time.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 05 Mar 2016, 20:00

by crab_

Hello.

Part 1
First thought about this mod - too much changes
How could you prove that your EB mod is better than balance in current stable version of WZ?

There is two ways of checking new balance:
1) Hundred testing games with balanced and professional teams.
2) Modeling games with some software and math background.

What way you prefer?

Whole goal of balance system is allowing players to use different strategies.
In current version of WZ players able to use different strategies. I see this all and I think it is good. Each change can break it...

Pease take into account following:
- balance is not about reality. Reality and Balance are two opposing poles. I mean - more balance => less reality and more reality => less balance.
- balance is not about how game was intented to be.

Part 2

Research:
The early – mid tech tree time era lasts longer and the later part of the research tech tree now researches faster. Some minor dependencies have been tweaked. Please reference the balance tracker spreadsheet for the full list of research changes.

I like it. Early game research is too fast. But it all is tuned to low-oil games. Make early research slower => rush will be only strategy in low-oil games

Power modules now give 1.25% more power but all power module upgrades are 1.25% less effective

Ok. But why improve power modules. I think you mean power generators.

All mortar upgrades after Bombard now take slightly less time to research making the later mortar upgrades more effective during the mid-game battles.

I like it.
Later mortars are useless. I believe they could be stronger.

Hovers now receive 25% more HP’s and have slightly increased max speed. Hovers are currently a little bit too weak. Hover flamers are now viable alternatives to cannons and rockets but scorpion and mantis are needed to utilize extra hover speeds.

I do not like it. Hovers are bad in NTW games, but on other maps they can be too strong. I remember games there hovers were overpowered.

Tracks move slightly faster and also receive 25% extra HP’s.

This should be tested carefully. If you improve tracks too much then they will be overpowered.
Tracked tanks should have weak points.

Wheels receive 25% extra HP’s making them not so inferior to early half tracks.

I like it, but this change can make early game worser. Rushing strategies will be greatly improved.
Better variant - add "wheels 2" later in game.

Rockets now do slightly 10% more damage to cyborg, before it was too little but cannons also have received some favors too (too many tradeoffs to list in cannons vs rockets). I think all propulsions should now be balanced now and each has practical application in certain scenario’s.

10% means 30% - > 33% or from 30% to 40%?

Defenses: have been slightly improved in the following ways:

OK, but I do not want to come back in times when turtle tactic was only choice in NTW games.
In 2.3.x series defenses were much stronger and NTW games were much more boring.

Repairing:

good

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 05 Mar 2016, 20:23

by crab_

I suggest to remove all change which can can unperictable effects and keep few key changes.

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 08 Mar 2016, 03:32

by MIH-XTC

omg***** I never thought to import delimited .txt files into excel and just found that all my hard work over last few weeks to manually import stats into excel could have been accomplished in mere minutes

Man I spent so much time scrolling back and forth in notepad++ to reference what each number means.

I guess it never occurred to me because I started off only with the intentions of modifying turret weights

uhg... well at least now I can have 100% accurate documentation in excel in a matter of seconds instead of days.

Also, now I'm able to do numeric calculations super easy on any possible balance consideration.

I just had a really good idea on how to make the research tech tree more linear and make research paths more independent. That's what I'm going to do next, it's going to be nice. Stay tuned

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 21 Apr 2016, 00:37

by Dutch19

MIH-XTC wrote:LAST EDITED MARCH 3rd 2016To use this mod:
Simply put the stats folder (see attachment) inside any map and that’s it. Warzone maps have a .wz file extension and they can be opened just like a folder (WZ maps behave just like .zip archives).

Hi, could you explain how to make this mod work in the sp campaign?
Is it maybe possible to make this mod avail as a .wz mod file?

Re: Enhanced Balance Mod for 3.x

Posted: 24 Apr 2016, 00:31

by MIH-XTC

Dutch19 wrote:

MIH-XTC wrote:LAST EDITED MARCH 3rd 2016To use this mod:
Simply put the stats folder (see attachment) inside any map and that’s it. Warzone maps have a .wz file extension and they can be opened just like a folder (WZ maps behave just like .zip archives).

Hi, could you explain how to make this mod work in the sp campaign?
Is it maybe possible to make this mod avail as a .wz mod file?

Funny you should ask that, just a couple of days ago I tried using it in the campaign and found it's not compatible with the campaign because the stats folder found under base.wz is not the same as the stats folder in mp.wz. Not all of the same weapons are available and wz threw an error when trying to use the mp.wz stats in the campaign. I'll have to compare base.wz to mp.wz stats and figure out which lines need to be removed. I'm in the process of fixing it now.

Now that I realized I can import all of the stats into excel (comma delimited text files) I'm going to make it such that anyone can modify the stats within the excel workbook (much easier to read) and write VBA code to export all of the stats .txt files with the click of one button. This way anyone will be able to experiment with their own modifications. I'd like for this to be more of a tool for other people to use.